250 years of SW Indian Monsoon Variability from Red Sea Corals

Abstract:

During the northern hemisphere summer, strong dust storms develop in the Tokar Delta region of Sudan. These massive dust storms are funneled through a gap in the coastal mountains and blow out across the Red Sea. The generation and transport of these dust storms is driven by the large-scale atmospheric pressure gradient across the Red Sea, which is a component of the Southwest Indian Monsoon. Dust deposited on the Red Sea is recorded in skeletal geochemistry of corals that live on the Saudi Arabian coast, and provides an opportunity to reconstruct variability in the monsoon system prior to instrumental records. We have generated annually-resolved records of coral Ba/Ca, which display strong correlations to the zonal pressure gradient across the Red Sea during the instrumental period. Our coral-based monsoon records show an increasing trend in the strength of SW Indian Monsoon circulation since the Little Ice Age, in agreement with lower-resolution Arabian Sea upwelling based records. Our records also show strong decadal-scale variability, which was strongest during the late 19^th century and has declined during the past century. In this presentation, we will discuss the decadal-scale variability in the SW Indian Monsoon circulation over the past 250 years as revealed by Red Sea Corals and the implications of the relationships and trends observed in this study for projections of future monsoon variability.